


The Wolf and The Lion

by thefairfleming



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:11:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5631130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefairfleming/pseuds/thefairfleming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The queen's dragonslayer is sent out to capture a different sort of monster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wolf and The Lion

**Author's Note:**

> A fic I wrote for the Game of Ships: A Night At The Movies challenge, with a Fantasy Movie prompt. Thinking it may become a series of related vignettes, so putting it here!

“I believe a bit of gratitude is customary when one has been saved from burning.”

Jaime hands the girl a cup of wine, and she takes it awkwardly, her wrists still bound.

“Indeed?” she asks. “Are women often grateful to be kidnapped where you’re from, sir?”

Irritation ripples over his skin, and Jaime’s words are perhaps sharper than he intended when he replies, “ _Kidnapping_ seems a strange word for rescuing, my lady.”

She doesn’t bother replying, only giving the leather straps around her wrists an eloquent look before lifting the wine cup to her lips.

They sit in silence for awhile after that, Jaime tending the fire, the girl- Sansa- sitting across the flames from him, drinking her wine. The sun had fallen quickly, leaving them in the darkness of the forest. Jaime had been hoping for a night at an inn rather than sleeping on his bedroll, but it was clearly not to be.

Maybe that’s for the best. Nice beds only bring memories of _her_.

“They weren’t going to burn me,” Sansa says at last, taking another sip of her wine. “It’s not their way in the Vale.”

When Jaime doesn’t comment, she meets his eyes and says, “They would’ve thrown me down the mountain.”

“Ah,” Jaime says, drinking wine himself, albeit from the wineskin itself rather than a cup. “Well, in that case, I can see why you’re so put out with me. Rescuing you from burning alive is one thing, but being flung down a rocky cliffside….might as well have saved you from a garden party.”

Her lips twist at that, and she takes another drink from her- _his_ cup. She’s a pretty thing, he can admit, even in her too-big robes, her red hair a tangled wreck. Her eyes are blue rather than green, but they’re compelling nonetheless, and yes, Jaime is glad he’ll be sleeping on a forest floor next to her rather than in the tight, comfortable, familiar confines of a bed.

“You rescued me from one death, sir, that’s true,” Sansa says. “But you and I both know you’re only bringing me to another one.”

“I realize the wine is not of great quality, my lady, but I hardly think it’s fatal-,”

“You’re the queen’s dragonslayer,” she interrupts, rolling her eyes. “Even wild wolf-girls from the untamed North know of you.” A smile, the slightest flash of teeth. “And you’re not exactly inconspicuous, sir.”

Jaime manages to keep his eyes from going to his golden hand, but to his surprise, the girl doesn’t look at it, either, keeping her eyes trained on his face.

And when she does break their gaze, it’s only to look to her cup of wine. “The queen thinks I killed her son,” she says. “You’re her beloved monster-hunter, so you’re bringing me to her where she’ll…oh, I don’t know. Cut my head off. Hang me from a parapet, perhaps. Put me naked in a cage so that when the next full moon comes, all can see me for what I really am.”

“And what is that, Lady Sansa?” Jaime asks before drinking another mouthful of wine, wanting to wet his suddenly dry throat. She is nothing like he expected her to be, and bloody hell, but he hates fucking _surprises_.

“Oh, I am everything they say I am,” she says, and once again, her eyes meet his, a contact Jaime seems to feel low in his gut.

He should not have touched the wine tonight.

“You are a monster-hunter, and you have caught yourself a monster indeed, sir. I did not kill the prince, but believe me, if I could’ve torn his throat out with my teeth, I would have.”

The fierceness in her words sends a bolt of lust through him, and Jaime would roll his eyes at his own predictability. A lion, a wolf. Seems all a woman needs is claws to make him want her.

“So,” Sansa says, sitting back, her legs crossing beneath her robes, “there is really no need to play the honorable knight with me. A few years ago, I might have appreciated this farce, you as noble savior, me as helpless damsel. Might’ve even made a lovely song.”

“Do you not care for songs, my lady?” he asks, even as he feels that somehow, they are making a song together. A discordant sort of harmony, two people attempting to play a song in a new key after using a different one for so long.

“Not anymore,” she answers, and this smile bares even more teeth.

There’s a sharp crack from the fire then as one log snaps from the heat, and it breaks the tension of the moment, something Jaime is oddly grateful for.

He’d been expecting a simpering little dove, no matter what Cersei claimed about the girl. He had prepared to play knight gallant even as he’d tied her up, but he had never thought Sansa Stark might actually be a threat.

“Would it make you feel better,” he asks, poking at the fire with a stick, “if I told you this is nothing personal? I couldn’t give a toss if you killed Joffrey or not.”

She studies him for a long moment, turning the cup in her hands. “No,” she says at last. “That actually makes it worse, sir knight. You see.” She leans forward, and as she does, her knee catches the edge of her robe, pulling it off one white shoulder. Jaime can’t stop staring at that pale skin even as she says, “If you were capturing me for yourself, because you believed me to be all that they say I am, I could understand that. Even those idiots at the Vale thought I had killed their lady. I was innocent of that crime, but they did not know that. They were seeking revenge. That….that I can understand. That I know. But you?”

Rising, she tosses the dregs of her wine on the fire, making it hiss, a cloud of steam rising up. “You are nothing more than the queen’s dog, sent to fetch a plaything for her. And you do it. You, who killed a _dragon_.”

Jaime can only stare at her, a thousand sardonic responses filling his head, but none making them to his lips.

“They kept me in a cage for a moon’s turn at the Vale, Sir Jaime, but I think you’re the only one of us who’s ever truly been kept prisoner.”

And with that, the girl tossed him his cup before settling back down on the ground, her back to him as she wrapped herself in the cloak he’d given her.

He should just let her go to sleep, because the sooner she’s asleep, the sooner they can wake and be on their way. The sooner he can get back home, and to Cersei.

But Jaime has never been one to let someone have the last word. “I killed that dragon for her,” he says, his golden hand lying heavily on his thigh. “All of this, I do for her.”

Sansa raises her head, looking at him over her shoulder, those blue eyes seeming far older and wiser than the years. “Imagine, sir,” she says, “what you might accomplish if you ever did anything for _you_.”

She holds his eyes for a moment, then turns back around, snuggling down deeper into his cloak.

This should’ve been the simplest mission of his life, Jaime reflects, snatching the wineskin up from the ground. He has hunted and killed monsters across the land for his queen, and he will not let one slip of a girl who is only dangerous one night of the month get under his skin.

But he stays awake watching her all night nonetheless.


End file.
